THE number of Yorkshire companies going bust rose by more than a quarter last year, a survey has revealed.
Figures from business information group Equifax showed there were 3,424 business failures across the region during 2009 – up by 25.1% on the 2,736 reported for 2008.
However, Equifax said the region may have “turned the corner” as the region saw a 2.8% fall in the number of business failures during the final quarter of last year – 801 compared with 824 during the same quarter of 2008.
Nationally, the number of business failures totalled 32,988 for 2009 – some 18% higher than the 27,958 logged the previous year. The fourth quarter figure was 7.7% down at 7,756 from 8,401 for the same period of 2008.
All major sector reported an increase in business failures during 2009 – with construction seeing a 30.8% increase, manufacturing reporting a rise of 23.1% and wholesale facing a 20.1% increase.
Fourth quarter figures showed a decline in all major areas – notably by 20.9% for retail and 17.5% for transport and communications.
Neil Munroe, external affairs director for Equifax, said: “Clearly, the UK economy is not out of the woods.
“Businesses that have survived so far must continue to be very careful about how they manage their customer and supplier relationships to ensure they get paid on time and don’t get caught out by bad debt or failure.
“They also need to make sure they are well prepared for external factors that they can’t change. It’s unclear yet how the VAT change back to 17.5% is going to affect business.
“But we think our latest figures should give encouragement to those organisations that have come through the last 12 months relatively unscathed.”
Separate figures from information group Experian showed there were 160 business insolvencies in December 2009. It said that figure was down by 31.6% on December 2008. Nationally, 2,090 insolvencies were logged last month – 11.7% down on the December 2008, total.
